


wind in our sails and hearts on our sleeves

by galaxyowl



Category: Campaign (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Light Canon-Typical Violence, Other, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24797872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyowl/pseuds/galaxyowl
Summary: Hildred Gastaur used to be a corsair. It doesn't take all that much convincing to get her to return to that life.
Relationships: Gable/Hildred Gastaur
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	wind in our sails and hearts on our sleeves

The featherweave whips in the wind overhead as the _Uhuru_ lifts out of port and Hildred leans against the railing as the city of Burza Nyth grows smaller below them. Gable stands beside her, their attention more focused on her than the sights and sounds of takeoff. They can’t quite read her expression.

“Are you… okay?” Gable says.

Hildred turns towards them. “Just stunning,” she says. The wind sends her hair flying out behind her and she runs a hand through it. “How about you?”

There are so many answers they could give to that question. “It’s been a long week,” they say. Hildred nods. “But I think right this moment I’m pretty good.” They’re telling the truth, as strange as it is. All of the chaos is over, at least for now.

They lost a lot in Burza Nyth. They gained a lot, too.

Gained something, anyway.

The land below them disappears. Gable’s mind drifts—to everything that had happened just in that day; to Hildred and their conversation in the stadium locker room.

To Hildred giving them that feather.

Gable had turned it over in their hands. It may as well have been a crow’s feather. “It’s not mine.”

“How do you know?”

How did they know? “It’s… hard to explain.” They didn’t understand much of this angel stuff themself. Their own past was a mystery that they had to fight for scraps of clues to. “I just do.”

Hildred didn’t push, thankfully. She just looked at Gable for a long moment, until finally, she said, “I assume you have somewhere you have to be.”

“The plan was to leave the city as soon as possible,” Gable said with a nod.

“Right.”

Silence, as the two of them looked into one another’s eyes. Gable still gripped the Fallen feather in their hand.

They should leave.

“You could come with us,” they said instead.

And so she did.

***

Hildred and Gable walk, hand in hand, through the cobblestoned streets of the unfamiliar city. They’re nominally looking for a shop where they can buy some supplies, but Hildred’s fairly sure that was just an excuse to get them away from the ship. Not that she’s complaining.

It does give her a chance to bring up something that she’s been wondering about.

“Gable,” she says, “does the captain not like me?”

Gable stops dead, a seven-foot-tall deer-in-the-headlights. “Why do you ask?”

Hildred slows to a stop as well, and shrugs. “I don’t think he’s spoken a single word to me since I came aboard.”

“He’s like that with everyone,” they say in a rush.

Until this moment, the matter of the captain’s opinion had been one of idle curiosity. Now worry courses through her. Is Gable lying to her? Why? “Oh,” she says, at length. “Okay.” She pauses. “Even with you? It seems like there’s the handful of you who are constantly… in counsel with him, or whatever it is. Surely he talks then.” Half-joking.

Gable makes a very complicated series of facial expressions. “Uh, yeah,” they say. “I guess he does. When we’re talking to the captain the captain talks. That would make sense, wouldn’t it.”

“Gable,” Hildred says slowly, “are… What’s really going on here?” Many different uncharitable possibilities flash through Hildred’s mind of what it is Gable might actually be doing all those times they’ve told people they’re going to speak with the captain. She does her best to dismiss them.

Gable opens their mouth as if to say something, closes it, and then starts again: “The situation with the captain isn’t something I can explain to you right now.”

Hildred furrows her brow. “Why not?”

“Just… just trust me, okay? I promise I’ll tell you eventually.”

Hildred studies their expression. There’s something going on here, but… “I trust you,” she says, “of course I do.” She leans up and gives them a peck on the cheek.

They continue their walk through the market as Hildred tries, although perhaps doesn’t succeed, at putting the conversation out of her mind.

***

“We’re _not_ telling her,” Travis says as he paces the captain’s quarters. “Frankly, I can’t believe we’re even having this debate. I don’t know about you but I’m not especially interested in losing everything we’ve built in the last several months just because you’re all horny for this woman.“

“Shut up,” Gable says, and then, “I trust her.”

“Really? What a shocking revelation.” Travis stops. “We’re putting it to a vote. Jonnit?”

Jonnit, who had been standing on the other side of the small room as Gable and Travis stared one another down, starts at the sound of his name. He looks between the two of them, eyes wide. “Um.”

“Come on,” Travis says, gesturing as he talks, “we agreed that it was going to be the—well, the four of us.” An uncomfortable silence clouds the room for a few heartbeats before Travis plunges onwards. “We can’t go bringing new people into the conspiracy willy-nilly. We may as well just tell the whole crew.”

“I mean…” Jonnit says. “Hildred _did_ uproot her whole life to come with Gable. It’d be pretty weird for her to turn around and betray them.”

“Thank you,” Gable says.

“But…” Jonnit continues. “I _also_ agree with Travis that this is a pretty serious decision to be making… I mean, I don’t know. Maybe we should… take a little longer to think about it, at least?”

“See?” Travis says. “Jonnit knows how to be _reasonable_ about these things.”

“I hate you,” Gable says.

“Uh-huh.”

***

Hildred and Gable share a hammock, more nights than not. (Gable’s extra-large hammock is more than big enough for Hildred to fit, laying pressed against their side like two animals curled up in a single nest.)

Tonight, the creaking of the ship’s hull keeps Hildred awake, and she finds her gaze lingering on the parallel scars that run across Gable’s back.

Gable shifts—Hildred hadn’t realized they were awake—and rolls over so they’re facing her. The two of them meet eyes, and they lay there for a moment, in silence, Hildred’s mind thick with the fog of a late night after a long day.

“What was it like?” she says softly. “The fall.”

Gable tenses.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Hildred says quickly, realizing what she’s asked.

“It’s fine,” they say, after a moment. “It’s all… kind of _blurry_ , anyways. I remember… not the falling, but the landing. The ocean. Washing up on shore.” They chuckle. “That was where I met—“ They cut themself off. “Not the point. That’s my earliest memory, that’s all.”

Hildred sits up, sending the hammock rocking slightly. “You don’t remember before that?”

They shake their head. “Bits and pieces, sometimes, but not really. None of us do.” They pause. “I think.”

“That must be terrible.”

Gable doesn’t respond. They sit up, as much as they can. “Does that bother you?” they say.

Hildred laughs softly. “Does that bother _me_?”

“I mean—” Gable stops. “I mean, would you still… still feel the way you do about me, if there was something in my past that was…” They trail off.

Hildred takes their hand. “Gable,” she says. “Whether or not you remember it, I know _you_. There’s nothing you could have been back then that would change that.”

“You can’t know that.”

“No,” Hildred says, “I suppose I can’t.”

It’s a while longer before either of them fall asleep.

***

This town has a bird race. It’s small, compared to Burza Nyth, but nonetheless, the moment this information had come to their awareness Gable had grabbed Hildred off the _Uhuru_ and insisted they go see what else they can find out.

If this works out…

Gable wants to be able to do this thing for Hildred. They want to be able to do something right. Hildred’s eyes are practically glowing with excitement as the two of them arrive at the griffon stables.

It is only as they stop outside the building that Gable realizes they have no idea how to go about signing up for a race in this town. In Burza Nyth it had just kind of… happened. They glance at Hildred, who, presumably, knows all about these things.

“Let’s see if anyone’s around, yeah?” Hildred says. She pushes open the front door and steps inside, and Gable follows her.

A chorus of curious bird noises rises up as they enter. Dust floats through shafts of sunlight. A person waves at them from where they’re in the middle of refilling a feed bag, and crosses the space towards them a moment after. “Can I help you?”

“My name is Hildred Gaustar,” Hildred says. The stablehand doesn’t react. “Four-time Aur Pióra champion.” Still nothing. “I’m a racer from Burza Nyth,” she says finally. “I was wondering if there was any upcoming competitions I could enter in? Or if…” She trails off.

“No,” they say slowly. “That’s generally later in the year.”

“Oh,” Hildred says. “Yeah, okay. Yeah.”

Gable definitely should have seen this coming. The odds on the races happening to be while they were in town had to be very low.

“I’m sorry,” they say to Hildred.

She shakes her head. “It was a good thought.”

“Still.”

Hildred turns to leave.

“Wait,” says the attendant. “Sorry, I—it occurs to me, we have no formal events, but if you’d like to use our facilities to practice, I’d be more than happy to provide you with the route map we use for our races.”

Hildred spins around, eyes bright. “That sounds great,” she says.

And it is.

***

A light rain drizzles and the sky darkens overhead as Hildred circles the _Uhuru_ on the back of Victory. The ship is in the middle of a weeks-long flight and she’d finally decided to take the bird out just for exercise.

Something is wrong. Too many people on deck for this time of evening, maybe. She hovers where she is, trying to rid herself of the sudden sense of unease.

A shadow passes overhead, and Hildred looks up to see a ship, its blood-red sails just visible through the clouds, lines running down to the _Uhuru_. Everything sharpens into focus: the sound of swords hitting one another, feet slamming on the wood of the deck, people shouting. They’ve been boarded.

She could fly away now. The thought flashes through her mind, unwanted: there is nothing stopping her from leaving and saving herself. She could just stay away for the battle and return after the dust has settled pretending like she didn’t know.

On the deck below her, Gable cuts a striking figure amidst the chaos.

Hildred Gastaur is done with saving herself.

She needs to do… something. Anything. Panic rises in her like a tide coming in. She circles closer. She has no weapons, no plan, just instinct. She presses herself close to Victory’s back as together they swoop down, and knock a Red Feather soldier to the deck.

Someone cheers her name, and Hildred looks up, grinning, and makes eye contact with Jonnit, before she takes off again, leaving the soldier bloodied on the floor.

It becomes a kind of dance, a kind of race, Hildred soaring in and out of the fray, keeping just enough distance to avoid enemy blows. Everything around her is vivid and clear and she is _alive_. The fight rages for a while—seconds, minutes, hours, she couldn’t really say—and then, in an instant, everything quiets. Hildred lifts up above the ship, out of range again, and looks down. What had happened to cause so many people to freeze?

One of the Red Feathers has their sword to the throat of Orimar Vale. “Do you surrender or not?” they shout—nominally at the captain, but clearly intended for everyone to hear.

No one reacts. For one heartbeat, and then another. Someone shouts, “Go ahead and kill him!” with a half-hearted laugh. Hildred scans the crowd; no one from the _Uhuru_ crew is within striking range of the would-be victor.

No one but her.

She only has one chance; if she messes up and Captain Vale dies as a result she’ll never live it down.

Hildred waits. For one heartbeat, and then another. And then she charges, a blur of feathers, and Victory rakes its talons across the Red Feather’s body as the speed of their movement slams Hildred’s body to the deck. She moves to sit up; the Red Feather whirls and gets a blow in on her with their blade.

Things go hazy, after that.

There’s shouting, and, she’s pretty sure, and end to the battle. A voice nearby saying, “Shit, is she okay?”

Hands on her back, carrying her.

A dream, or what she assumes to be a dream, of Jonnit and the captain and a coyote that speaks with Travis’ voice. (“Honestly, I don’t see why I should be grateful, I was saying just recently that we should get rid of him ourselves—“)

And Gable. Talking to her, staying near her, always, _Gable_.

A bright white light.

And then, finally, sleep.

When Hildred wakes, Gable has fallen asleep in the same room, slumped against the wall. As she sits up, Gable stirs as well.

They jump to their feet. “You’re alright.”

“Yeah,” Hildred says. “Thanks to you, I assume.” Her wounds have vanished while she was out.

Gable nods stiffly. “I… was worried about you,” they say.

“I know,” Hildred says with a smile.

“I—“ Gable breaks off. “What if I hadn’t been around?”

“You were.”

“But what happens next time, when I’m not?”

Hildred studies Gable’s face, her gaze tracing the familiar shape of it. “I don’t know,” she says. The future is the future. The past is the past. What they have is right now. “Guess well just have to wait and see, huh?”

Gable goes quiet.

Hildred decides to change the subject. “What happened after I passed out?”

“How much do you remember?”

She waves a hand. “Bits and pieces. Is the captain alright?” It would be kind of embarrassing for her to have gotten so beaten up all for nothing.

“Oh,” Gable says. “About that, Hildred—about that captain—there’s some stuff you should probably know.”

Hildred raises an eyebrow. “Like what?”

And Gable tells her.

**Author's Note:**

> you can come shout about skyjacks with me on twitter & tumblr @confusedbluesky


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